𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 || 𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐊𝐒𝐎𝐎

Chapter One

"The boss is expecting you. Good luck."

Joshua Hong gave the secretary a faint smile before opening the door and going inside.

There were very few things Joshua disliked as much as being called to his boss's office. As a department head, he saw him more often than the average employee, but being unexpectedly summoned to Choi Seungcheol's office was never a good sign. Thankfully, it hadn't happened all that often in the years that he'd worked for the company.

Joshua came to a halt, his face carefully schooled into a mask of polite attention as Seungcheol looked at him from across the desk.

"Sit," Seungcheol said tersely.

Joshua didn't take the tone personally. Seungcheol's abrupt, harsh manner was rather legendary. The vice president of the Caldwell Group wasn't one for small talk.

Joshua sat down in one of the chairs. "You wanted to see me, sir?" Seungcheol was just a year older than he was, thirty, but his very presence seemed to demand respect, so it wasn't all that off-putting to have to address his peer as sir. Seungcheol had men twice his age addressing him that way.

His boss regarded him for a moment, his black eyes rather unnerving—if Joshua were prone to feeling unnerved.

"I need your help."

Joshua blinked. Until now, he had been sure those words weren't in his boss's vocabulary.

"Of course. How can I help?"

Seungcheol folded his hands on the desk, his expression sharp and assessing.

Meeting his gaze calmly, Joshua kept himself still as the silence stretched. He refused to let Seungcheol intimidate him.

"You might have heard of the incident that happened to me three days ago," Seungcheol said at last.

Joshua raised his eyebrows. Incident? That was what Seungcheol was calling an attempted murder? The entire company had been buzzing with speculation since someone had shot Seungcheol. The bullet had just grazed his arm, but there was still a lot of blood, and yet Seungcheol was back at work the next day as if nothing had happened. The man truly was a workaholic.

"I've heard," Joshua said dryly. He didn't think there was anyone in Boston who hadn't heard of it. Seungcheol was one of the most successful businessmen in the city. It didn't help that he was heavily rumored to have family links to the Italian mafia—the rumor that had been around for years and was a hot topic again.

"What you don't know is that it was the third attempt on my life this month," Seungcheol said, his tone mild, as if he were talking about the weather.

Third?

Seungcheol pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. "There's more," he said with obvious reluctance. "There has been a kidnapping attempt on Jeonghan."

Joshua frowned. It was widely known in the company that Yoon Jeonghan was Seungcheol's lover. It had been a subject of much gossip last year. Although fraternization in the company was frowned upon, it wasn't forbidden as long as it wasn't within the same department. People still gossiped, of course. A lot of people disapproved, considering that Jeonghan had been Seungcheol's PA before he was transferred to Joshua's department to work as a level designer. Personally, Joshua didn't give a shit. Jeonghan was a good dev and he got the job done. Joshua didn't care if Jeonghan was also sucking their boss's cock.

But apparently some people did care—cared enough to attempt to kidnap him.

"Because of your relationship?" Joshua said in a neutral voice.